


Light up the Night

by Gray_Days



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 20:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18373577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Days/pseuds/Gray_Days
Summary: Droog really wishes that Spades Slick and Snowman would keep their affair to themselves. And also that they'd quit taking his damn stuff.





	Light up the Night

When Droog breaks Slick's lock — the second this month — to search his room for the carton of cigarettes he knows has to be in there because he's already turned the whole rest of the hideout upside down, he's greeted by Snowman.

She's sitting on Slick's bed, sprawled in an ostentatiously casual way like she's purposely going for the sense that she doesn't give a damn, with her coat crinkling against her curves and riding too high up on her thigh for her to be wearing anything underneath. There's a moment's silence like a breath suspended at the peak of inhalation as Droog's hand automatically clenches for a weapon, then loosens as his brain catches up and reminds him that it wouldn't do any good. Snowman doesn't bother to move even as his hand lowers. There's a cigarette in the holder in her mouth, dripping ashes onto the black sheets. The smell of it is immediate and familiar.

"That's one of mine," he says, finally letting his hand fall from the doorknob.

Snowman takes the holder from her mouth and turns it in her fingers to inspect the cigarette. "I should have known. I've never actually managed to find proof of him buying his own. You like them strong."

He doesn't step over the threshold, not with her in there on Slick's bed. "Where'd you find them?"

"Bathroom sink. Here." She pulls the cardboard pack from a pocket that shouldn't have been able to disguise its shape with the way the coat clings to her and tosses it across the room to him. Droog catches it and inspects the contents. Four left. Damn it.

"How long have you been here?"

"Just long enough for the one, don't worry. Don't you keep track of your cigarettes?"

"Yes," he snaps. He doesn't light up in front of her, instead snapping the carton closed and slipping it into his jacket pocket to deal with later.

Slick didn't even bother to transfer them to them to something classier than mass-produced cardboard. Droog _knows_ Spades has a cigarette case, because Droog had gotten him one engraved in black-patina'd steel as a passive-aggressive anniversary present the year after the Crew finally raised Midnight City into a proper metropolis, when tobacco became a reliable enough commodity that Slick no longer had an excuse to keep stealing Droog's goddamn smokes.

Snowman blows a set of smoke rings that diffuse into the unwashed room and doesn't respond. They stay in silence like that for a while. Eventually she says, "You know, I really expected he'd be here by now. What could he possibly be doing, do you think?"

"I'm not his keeper," Droog replies. His voice remains level. No point in getting upset with Slick's squeeze when it won't do him any good.

She quirks the corner of her lip at him with a condescension that he can vaguely relate to wanting to stab off her face. "Planning to stay here all night?"

"I'm not sticking around for whatever you get up to." He tosses half the broken lock at her. It phases through her body, bounces off the bed, and hits the wall behind her. "I might take a walk." The twinge in his head is starting to pulse. He really should have just smoked a cigarette before, because now there's pride involved and he refuses to break down in front of anyone who can see. Especially Snowman. "Just around the neighbourhood, in case you get any ideas."

She just blows smoke rings at the room again, because there's no need for either of them to say that walking distance for him is far more of a hike than teleporting distance for her. Droog gives her a flat look, then turns away and heads for the ladder up to street level without looking back. He leaves the door to Slick's room open by half a foot, just enough that it doesn't seem like a studied insult but enough that she'll have to make the choice whether to get up to close it prior to Slick's return.

He's sheltering under a pet-store awning and on his fourth cigarette when a yowl that he at first mistakes for a cat in heat vibrates up through a nearby manhole. Droog glares at the sleeping kittens in the window and drops the butt under his foot to grind it out, then goes to find the nearest store that carries his brand.

**Author's Note:**

> Gradually continuing to upload my old writing. This was originally written in 2014.


End file.
